Professor of Economics Ha-Joon Chang. Photo: wikipedia

For the past 40 years or so, neoliberalism has reigned supreme over much of the western capitalist world, producing unparalleled wealth accumulation levels for a handful of individuals and global corporations while the rest of society has been asked to swallow austerity, stagnating incomes and a shrinking welfare state. But just when we all thought that the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism had reached their penultimate point, culminating in mass discontent and opposition to global neoliberalism, the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election brought to power a megalomaniac individual who subscribes to neoliberal capitalist economics while opposing much of its global dimension.

What exactly then is neoliberalism? What does it stand for? And what should we make of Donald Trump’s economic pronouncements? In this exclusive interview, world-renowned Cambridge University Professor of Economics Ha-Joon Chang responds to these urgent questions, emphasizing that despite Donald Trump’s advocacy of “infrastructure spending” and his opposition to “free trade” agreements, we should be deeply concerned about his economic policies, his embrace of neoliberalism and his fervent loyalty to the rich.

C. J. Polychroniou: For the past 40 or so years, the ideology and policies of “free-market” capitalism have reigned supreme in much of the advanced industrialized world. Yet, much of what passes as “free-market” capitalism are actually measures designed and promoted by the capitalist state on behalf of the dominant factions of capital. What other myths and lies about “actually existing capitalism” are worth pointing out?

Ha-Joon Chang: Gore Vidal, the American writer, once famously said that the American economic system is “free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich.” I think this statement very well sums up what has passed for ‘free-market capitalism’ in the last few decades, especially but not only in the US. In the last few decades, the rich have been increasingly protected from the market forces, while the poor have been more and more exposed to them.

For the rich, the last few decades have been “heads I win, tails you lose.” Top managers, especially in the US, sign on pay packages that give them hundreds of millions of dollars for failing — and many times more for doing a decent job. Corporations are subsidised on a massive scale with few conditions — sometimes directly but often indirectly through government procurement programs (especially in defense) with inflated price tags and free technologies produced by government-funded research programs. After every financial crisis, ranging from the 1982 Chilean banking crisis through the Asian financial crisis of 1997 to the 2008 global financial crisis, banks have been bailed out with hundreds of trillions of dollars of taxpayers’ money and few top bankers have gone to prison. In the last decade, the asset-owning classes in the rich countries have also been kept afloat by historically low rates of interests.
In contrast, poor people have been increasingly subject to market forces.

In the name of increasing “labor market flexibility,” the poor have been increasingly deprived of their rights as workers. This trend has reached a new level with the emergence of the so-called “gig economy,” in which workers are bogusly hired as “self-employed” (without the control over their work that the truly self-employed exercise) and deprived of even the most basic rights (e.g., sick leave, paid holiday). With their rights weakened, the workers have to engage in a race to the bottom in which they compete by accepting increasingly lower wages and increasingly poor working conditions.

In the area of consumption, increasing privatization and deregulation of industries supplying basic services on which the poor are relatively more reliant upon — like water, electricity, public transport, postal services, basic health care and basic education — have meant that the poor have seen a disproportionate increase in the exposure of their consumption to the logic of the market. In the last several years since the 2008 financial crisis, welfare entitlements have been reduced in many countries and the terms of their access (e.g., increasingly ungenerous “fitness for work tests” for the disabled, the mandatory training for CV-making for those receiving unemployment benefits) have become less generous, driving more and more poor people into labor markets they are not fit to compete in.

As for the other myths and lies about capitalism, the most important in my view is the myth that there is an objective domain of the economy into which political logic should not intrude. Once you accept the existence of this exclusive domain of the economy, as most people have done, you get to accept the authority of the economic experts, as interlocutors of some scientific truths about the economy, who will then dictate the way your economy is run.

However, there is no objective way to determine the boundary of the economy because the market itself is a political construct, as shown by the fact that it is illegal today in the rich countries to buy and sell a lot of things that used to be freely bought and sold — such as slaves and the labor service of children.

In turn, if there is no objective way to draw the boundary around the economy, when people argue against the intrusion of political logic into the economy, they are in fact only asserting that their own ‘political’ view of what belongs in the domain of the market is somehow the correct one.

It is very important to reject the myth of [an] inviolable boundary of the economy, because that is the starting point of challenging the status quo. If you accept that the welfare state should be shrunk, labor rights have to be weakened, plant closures have to be accepted, and so on because of some objective economic logic (or “market forces,” as it is often called), it becomes virtually impossible to modify the status quo.

Austerity has become the prevailing dogma throughout Europe, and it is high on the Republican agenda. If austerity is also based on lies, what is its actual objective?

A lot of people — Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Mark Blyth and Yanis Varoufakis, to name some prominent names — have written that austerity does not work, especially in the middle of an economic downturn (as it was practised in many developing countries under the World Bank-IMF Structural Adjustment Programs in the 1980s and the 1990s and more recently in Greece, Spain and other Eurozone countries).

Many of those who push for austerity do so because they genuinely (albeit mistakenly) believe that it works, but those who are smart enough to know that it doesn’t still would use it because it is a very good way of shrinking the state (and thus giving more power to the corporate sector, including the foreign one) and changing the nature of state activities into a pro-corporate one (e.g., it is almost always welfare spending that goes first).

In other words, austerity is a very good way of pushing through a regressive political agenda without appearing to do so. You say you are cutting spending because you have to balance the books and put the house in order, when you are actually launching an attack on the working class and the poor. This is, for example, what the Conservative-Liberal Democrats coalition government in the UK said when it launched a very severe austerity program upon assuming power in 2010 — the country’s public finance at the time was such that it did not need such a severe austerity program, even by the standards of orthodox economics.

What do you make of all the talk about the dangers of public debt? How much public debt is too much?

Whether public debt is good or bad depends on when the money was borrowed (better if it were during an economic downturn), how the borrowed money was used (better if it was used for investment in infrastructure, research, education, or health than military expenditure or building useless monuments), and who holds the bonds (better if your own nationals do, as it will reduce the danger of a “run” on your country — for example, one reason why Japan can sustain very high levels of public debt is that the vast majority of its public debts are held by the Japanese nationals).

Of course, excessively high public debt can be a problem, but what is excessively high depends on the country and the circumstances. So, for example, according to the IMF data, as of 2015, Japan has public debt equivalent to 248 percent of GDP but no one talks of the danger of it. People may say Japan is special and point out that in the same year the US had public debt equivalent to 105 percent of GDP, which is much higher than that of, say,South Korea (38 percent), Sweden (43 percent), or even Germany (71 percent), but they may be surprised to hear that Singapore also has public debt equivalent to 105 percent of GDP, even though we hardly hear any worry about public debt of Singapore.

A number of well-respected economists are arguing that the era of economic growth has ended. Do you concur with this view?

A lot of people now talk of a “new normal” and a “secular stagnation” in which high inequality, aging population, and deleveraging (reduction in debt) by the private sector lead to chronically low economic growth, which can only be temporarily boosted by financial bubbles that are unsustainable in the long run.

Given that these causes can be countered by policy measures, secular stagnation is not inevitable. Aging can be countered by policy changes that make work and child-rearing more compatible (e.g., cheaper and better childcare, flexible working hours, career compensation for childcare) and by increased immigration. Inequality can be countered by more aggressive tax-and-transfer policy and by better protection for the weak (e.g., urban planning protecting small shops, supports for SMEs). Deleveraging by the private sector can be countered by increased government spending, as the Japanese experience of the last quarter century shows.

Of course, saying that secular stagnation can be countered is different from saying that it will be countered. For example, the quickest policy that can counter ageing — that is, increased immigration — is politically unpopular. In many rich countries, the alignment of political and economic forces is such that it will be difficult to reduce inequality significantly in the short- to medium-run. The current fiscal dogma is such that fiscal expansion seems unlikely in most countries in the near future.

Thus, in the short- to medium-run, low growth seems very likely. However, this does not mean that this will forever be the case. In the longer run, the changes in politics and thus, economic policies may change policies in such a way that the causes of “secular stagnation” are countered to a significant extent. This highlights how important the political struggle to change economic policies is.

What is your professional opinion of Donald Trump’s proposed economic policies, which clearly embrace neoliberalism and all sort of shenanigans for the rich but oppose global “free-trade” agreements, and what do you expect to happen when they collide with Ryan’s austerity budget?

Mr. Trump’s plan for American economic revival is still vague, but, as far as I can tell, it has two main planks — making American corporations create more jobs [at] home and increasing infrastructural investments.

The first plank seems rather fanciful. He says that he will do it mainly by engaging in greater protectionism, but it won’t work because of two reasons.

First, the US is bound by all sorts of international trade agreements — the WTO, the NAFTA, and various bilateral free-trade agreements (with Korea, Australia, Singapore, etc.). Although you can push things in the protectionist direction on the margin even within this framework, it will be difficult for the US to slap extra tariffs that are big enough to bring American jobs back under the rules of these agreements. Mr. Trump’s team says they will renegotiate these agreements, but that will take years, not months, and won’t produce any visible result at least during the first term of Mr. Trump’s presidency.

Second, even if large extra tariffs can somehow be imposed against international agreements, the structure of the US economy today is such that there will be huge resistance against these protectionist measures within the US. Many imports from countries like China and Mexico are things that are produced by — or at least produced for — American companies. When the price of iPhone and Nike trainers made in China or GM cars made in Mexico go up by 20 percent, 35 percent, not only American consumers but companies like Apple, Nike and GM will be intensely unhappy. But would this result in Apple or GM moving production back to the US? No, they will probably move it to Vietnam or Thailand, which is not hit by those tariffs.

The point is that, the hollowing out of American manufacturing industry has progressed in the contexts of (US-led) globalization of production and restructuring of the international trade system and cannot be reversed with simple protectionist measures. It will require a total rewriting of global trade rules and restructuring of the so-called global value chain.

Even at the domestic level, American economic revival will require far more radical measures than what the Trump administration is contemplating. It will require a systematic industrial policy that rebuilds the depleted productive capabilities of the US economy, ranging from worker skills, managerial competences, industrial research base and modernised infrastructure. To be successful, such industrial policy will have to be backed up by a radical redesigning of the financial system, so that more “patient capital” is made available for long-term-oriented investments and more talented people come to work in the industrial sector, rather than going into investment banking or foreign exchange trading.

The second plank of Mr. Trump’s strategy for the revival of the US economy is investment in infrastructure.

As mentioned above, the improvement in infrastructure is an ingredient in a genuine strategy of American economic renewal. However, as you suggest in your question, this may meet resistance from fiscal conservatives in the Republican-dominated Congress. It will be interesting to watch how this pans out, but my bigger worry is that Mr. Trump is likely to encourage “wrong” kinds of infrastructural investments — that is, those related to real estate (his natural territory), rather than those related to industrial development. This not only will fail to contribute to the renewal of the US economy but it may also contribute to creating real estate bubbles, which were an important cause behind the 2008 global financial crisis.

Copyright, Truthout. 

I must go away. There to the sand, to the sand. To that Kalahari I must go. Where the grass is
(Anna Swart, interview, 2000).[i]

Getting there

Out of these sands and sunshine deeply embedded in our past is our future –
(Botswana World Tourism Day poster, 27 Sept 1999).

July 12, 2002. The armed guard at Makro, a giant wholesaler in Durban, was wearing a bulletproof vest. We were doing our last minute shopping. I’d never seen a guard in-store before. During apartheid, unarmed, mainly black guards, would, on entry to a store, politely and gingerly search customers’ bags for bombs, guns and grenades. Nelia Oets, already in Upington, 1200 kms to the northwest, called just before my group left Durban. She had been mugged and had hurt her ankle, and might have to cancel her participation. This was serious as Nelia’s 4X4 was crucial to the trip. We arrived at the Upington Protea Hotel, owned by Mary Lange’s brother-in-law, 24 hours later. Nelia had called us by mobile phone earlier. She was on her way to the Molopo Lodge, her foot in a brace.

At the periphery
The next morning in Upington I filled up with petrol. The attendant told me to lock my car. A local gang was casing us. A retired couple at the Molopo Lodge 200 kms north mentioned to us later that they had been targeted while at an Upington supermarket. The receptionist at the hotel in Upington mentioned the busload of Taiwanese tourists who had recently been held up, Ned Kelly style, on the Maputu corridor highway. Two white members of our party complained of being closely shadowed by a security in-store guard: no one was above suspicion. At the supermarket a newspaper vendor insisted on pushing my trolley. He refused to loosen his grip until Vanessa McLennan-Dodd and I had unpacked its contents into the Sani. He was allowed to sell papers at the front of the store provided he prevented trolley theft. Stolen shopping was usually taken to the lokasie (‘location’ – black dormitory area near Upington) where there are few shops, where most of the working class, poor, and unemployed live. While clinging onto the trolley, the vendor vigorously shooed away the odd beggar and other would-be helpers/assailants/muggers. Not a policeman in sight. I bought a Sunday Times from the vendor in gratitude and paid off the ever-watchful car guard. In the newspaper the ‘Careers’-section reported that the Western Cape was experiencing a recruitment boom, though hiring was flat in the other eight provinces (Sunday Times Careers 14 July 2003: 1). Maybe Upington, in the Northern Cape, was at the epicentre of this flatness?

When we got back to the hotel, ready to leave for the Kalahari, we learned that Marit Sætre, an MA-student from Norway, had become violently ill. It must be the soapy water, we thought. She explained that the four Norwegians registered in our Programme in Durban during 2002 periodically succumbed to a 24-hour tummy bug. In the future, I’ll not make fun of First World students whose overseas doctors tell them not to drink the (very clean) Durban tap water, eat the salad, or forget their malaria pills. So we left Charlize Tomaselli and Lauren Dyll with Marit at the Hotel, which offered them free lodging. Both later complained of having been accosted by drunken white men in the streets during broad daylight. Vanessa and I drove on to Witdraai, two hours north on tar, where we were to meet Nelia, graduate students Linje Manyozo and Tim Reinhardt, Damien Tomaselli and Sherieen Pretorius, who had arrived there on the 11th.

Charlize reported that Marit was admitted to hospital that afternoon. The hospital demanded R1,000 in cash up-front for the ward. The manager refused to accept Marit’s Norwegian medical insurance, her father’s card number, or my gold card and ID-numbers, which I phoned through from the Lodge. Wealth before health! Or, perhaps the fear of Marit not settling her debt was as great as was the fear of the vendor losing a trolley? A matter of degree perhaps? Eventually Charlize persuaded the hotel to advance the hospital’s charge. The hospital obviously had little understanding of how to deal with international visitors or global insurance companies, in an otherwise remote province, which prides itself on its unique tourism attractions.

The retired couple had been scammed by credit card fraud in Upington – Nigerian cartels, they said, had ways of making impressions of cards, with accomplices in the banks. I remembered in Durban that MasterCard had declined to pay some of my large pre-trip purchases because of my Bank’s suspicion that it had been stolen. Perhaps losing R30,000 is less painful than a broken ankle? A mini-bus had broken down near Loubos. The passengers were waiting for a local associate to bring a welding machine. We had seen and heard them the previous day at the Molopo Lodge, as they had stopped off for lunch and a booze-up in the camp boma, listening to the kind of boere musiek (Afrikaner country music) never played on KwaZulu-Natal radio stations, but repetitively relayed on the Lodge’s music system. These fellows, as with most of the Lodge’s guests, were the epitome of Leon Schuster’s comedic movie characters: seventeen heavyset, Afrikaans-speaking men, clutching Castle Lager beer cans. Their demeanour – straight backs, beer bellies – was vaguely familiar. When we stopped to help them the next day near the Namibian border, they identified themselves as (plainclothes) policemen. Now I understood – in bygone apartheid times I would have instantly assumed them to be political enforcers – and avoided them like the plague. Now, we cooperated against criminals.

The three students arrived from Upington on 16 July, just in time for some exceptionally cold weather. That morning I talked to the ¹Khomani craftsmen across the dusty road from the Lodge, at their small fires, their tiny mock huts, and craft displays. Silikat van Wyk, the artist, came over, dressed in a tatty sports jacket covering his open chest and loincloth. Two tourists stopped and there was some light-hearted banter from the white male about ‘ware Boesmans’ (‘real Bushmen’) not feeling the cold, and being dressed in ‘Westerse gedrag’ (‘Western garb’). Silikat’s response was that just as Boere feel the cold, so do the Bushmen. There I met Toppies, who had painted the rock art impressions at the Kagga Kamma Game Park Hotel, 1200 kms south. I asked about Danie Jacobs, previously cultural manager at Ostri-San, in the North West Province, which we visited in 2001, where he, Isak and Abraham had worked. Danie had returned to Kagga Kamma, from where he had left in mid-2000 with a group of Kruipers to establish these other cultural sites.

I also asked Toppies about where the reeds from the Groot Skilpad (large grass structure looking like a tortoise) had gone. Toppies (interview 2002) explained that it had been removed bit by bit and used to repair the roofs of homes. The San organisations had not replaced the reeds, which had to be imported from another area. What was originally an imposing eye-catching structure was now just a bare skeleton, silhouetted against the cold blue sky – a metaphor, perhaps, for the cultural and physical state of this socially skeletal community. Someone in our group mentioned Maria Carey’s alleged remark in a satirical interview that, ‘when I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean, I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff’.

On arrival at the Lodge, Vanessa and I learned that our researchers were scattered along 46 kms of road doing interviews, exposing video, game viewing, dune surfing, and conducting photo-elicitations with photographs taken by Sian Dunn in April. Vanessa was soon engaged as a translator, and was given a hard time by Jon Kruiper about ‘taking knowledge’[ii] from the community:
Linje wants me to translate for him while he interviews Jon Kruiper about the photographs in Paul Weinberg’s book. I find translating awkward because I can speak enough Afrikaans to give people the impression that I understand them clearly, when in fact I only grasp about half of what they’re saying. This becomes a problem when we reach a dispute about payment for this interview. I’m not entirely sure what we agreed on in the first place and Afrikaans classes at school did not incorporate modules on negotiation and diplomacy. I try to explain that what we want to do for the Bushmen is about recognition and respect, not handing out money, but he isn’t buying it. Eventually I hand over R20, and tell Jon I hope he will understand our intentions when he sees the results of our work and that information is in fact sent back to our informants. He seems happy with me after that (McLennan-Dodd 2003).

A liquid economy
Our team voiced many complaints, not so much about the often drunken state of particular ≠Khomani individuals who had claimed the prime retail location in front of the Lodge, their insistent begging, or constant requests for money, meat and mielie (‘maize’) meal, but about the inconsiderate and often sexist attitudes of the mainly white men who visited the Lodge, who made a noise in the camp site, and who looked askance at this motley and strange crew partly consisting of long-haired, ear-ringed male (white) students. That a black Malawian was amongst them raised no eyebrows at all – racial tolerance in the post-apartheid transition had forged ahead at least. Nelia and I concur – stereotypes of white men do indeed encode a kernel of truth – that is why Schuster’s movies are so successful (cf. Olivier 1992; Steyn 2003).

Sherieen, a representative for a national liquor company, was taking a ‘working’ holiday. She checked out the Molopo Lodge Liquor Store, being interested in the locally harvested plonk the ≠Khomani individuals were buying so cheaply. The roadside craft sellers were keen to make immediate sales, claiming that they were ‘closing’ soon. Sherieen realised that what was ‘closing’ was not the stall, but the liquor store either for lunch or at night – that’s why the sale needed to be made in all haste! The consumption-production cycle involved small transparent liquor bottles as inputs: a) the liquid at 23 per cent alcohol permits almost instantaneous intoxication, especially on empty stomachs; b) the empty bottles are then recycled by filling them with colour sculpted sand patterns for sale to passing tourists; and this c) generates further cash with which to purchase yet more alcohol. When cash is harder to come by other means are used: the lavatory bowl from the ablution facility at the Witdraai tentepark (camp site) had been stolen – apparently for resale. No one admitted to knowing the culprits. The result was that no more tourists were expected to use the site. On talking to Joe Viljoen, a store manager at Hukuntsi, Botswana, we learnt that shortly after supplying meat he had shot on behalf of the Zutshwa residents’ Trust, the town of Hukuntsi 40 kms away, would be awash with venison, and that the Zutshwa residents would use the proceeds to buy alcohol. Hunting and gathering was being replaced with an economy liquefied/liquidated by alcohol.

The original intention of the traditional ≠Khomani had been to house in the skilpad lean-to all the stages of their crafts industry for tourist viewing; now they sat at the roadside hoping that their meagre stock, small skerms (!Kung: ‘grass hut’), and half-dressed individuals, would attract attention. Toppies (interview, 2002) then explained by means of an abstract drawing in the sand the endistanced relation between the ‘tradisionale mense’ (‘traditional people’) at Witdraai on the one hand, and the San organisations and ‘Westerse San’ (‘Westerners’ – pastoralists) on the other, locating the ≠Khomani Community Property Association (CPA) at the middle of the diagram. He explained that he was ‘ongeletterd’ (‘illiterate’) and that this inadequacy impeded his discussing the community’s problems with official San organisations. I suggested that our students’ research might be helpful in bridging this seeming communications gap. Toppies said he would bury his sketch in the sand, where it lay, and would recover and refer to it again when Lauren talked to him the next day. The future could be in the sand. But it’s also in government policy.

We were due to travel to Ngwatle, Botswana, on the 20th. The entrance fees to the ‘Wilderness Trail’ on the Botswana side of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park cost us an arm and a leg, as Botswana restricts access to one convoy per direction. Thus is total privacy ensured for the traveler. This attention to tourist needs contrasts sharply with the experience of the Central Kalahari Bushmen who were at that time being deprived of their rights to live in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) by the Botswana government – all in the name of development and civilization (Vinding 2002: 412-16). A court case brought against the government in 2004 by Survival International (SI) had resulted in international exposure for this displaced group and a growing militancy amongst Bushmen throughout the country.

The Botswana side of the Transfrontier Park has no facilities: we had to take all our water, petrol and food for the next 12 days, as we headed for Ngwatle. The South African side, however, was a veritable traffic jam with all kinds of 4X4s taking their dusty annual ‘off-road’ excursions where ordinary cars can go but which are worse for the wear on their return home. Tourists who stopped at Silikat Van Wyk’s stall opposite the Lodge 40 kms south, complained that even 4X4s were being damaged.[iii] A few days later my split battery charger refused to work. A local electrician over-rode the system, restoring power to the fridge and my laptop. The fear of my laptop not working was worse than my apprehension of the Sani breaking down. How would I record my story if my laptop faltered? I am too old to read my own handwriting any more. Thus have we become the slaves of machines, electronics and electricity.

Belinda Kruiper suggested that these difficulties were signs initially portending against the onward travel to Ngwatle. But she concluded that the ‘voices of truth’ through the research team were necessary in the light of the frustrations expressed by many of our Witdraai sources because of: i) their lack of education; ii) the alleged extraction of knowledge by so many opportunistic researchers without due acknowledgement: ‘We trust what goes out there is what we say. We don’t get things back …’ (Belinda Kruiper, interview, 2001a); and iii) the fact that the community leaders often become a barrier between the development NGOs and ordinary people. She was concerned that NGOs take on lives of their own and lose touch with those they claim to be representing. Informing the Ngwatle group of comparative conditions would be useful, something she had realised when accompanying journalist Rupert Isaacson (2001) into Botswana.

On travelling onto the Botswana side of the Park, Charlize announced that she had lost her passport. When we arrived at the Kaa gate at the north of the Park two days later, the passport official advised that we return via the Park as the border formalities would be less difficult than going through a formal border post as we had intended. So we steeled ourselves for another two days of arduous deep sand driving which had already torn my spare wheel off the underside of my vehicle.

At the core/centre
I discussed a conference paper with Belinda that I had delivered two weeks earlier in Finland (cf. Chapter 7). This study differed from my previous publications on the Kalahari. It was explicitly conceived of as theory, an epistemological sojourn, in which I stood back from dramatic narrative, experience, and description, to reflect on what we had been doing methodologically for the past eight years. That the paper was delivered near the North Pole was an advantage, because I needed to get away from the dust of the Kalahari, the extreme stresses of being an academic during the relentless materiality of political, educational and ideological transition, and to think about my/our research practices without these encumbrances. Ironically, one delegate took me to task for being ‘anti-theory’, expressing severe reservations about E.P. Thompson’s (1968) notion of ‘experience’, which I had invoked. She improbably linked it to George W. Bush’s use of the term (sic). I am not anti-theory, but I question narrow endistancing tantalisation, cut-’n-paste applications, the refusal and/or inability to interrogate Western-derived theory in terms of local perspectives, and theory which ineluctably assumes dualist Cartesian perspectives. Belinda commented that this reluctance might also indicate fear of the personal domain:

What’s happening in the bush, the personal stuff that you don’t want to know because it’s not relevant to your studies, because it’s actually in your own home – but if one can find a way to talk about it without the judgement then whether you live in a house in Hout Bay or a squatter camp it could be very much the same except for the material stuff. It could be spiritually right there, spiritually rich here, or spiritually poor there or here (Belinda Kruiper, interview, 2002).

Belinda Kruiper described the research team’s work as ‘a voice of truth’ and as a ‘platform’ for the community to make their voices heard (interview, 2002). I am transcribing Belinda’s comments from tape as an old Ngwatle woman takes up residence in our camp, wanting to sell us a gai, two days after we have informed the community that we have already spent our P2,000 budget. We repeat that we have no more pula. She lies down on the sand, covers her head, and goes to sleep. We are not sure how to respond. As much as we would like to purchase the item, this single act would open us to a flood of other vendors. So we leave her sleeping in the sand just before sunset and get on with camp life. A student later gives her some food. She thanks her profusely, eats it, gets up, and leaves. Is this an example of the ‘personal’, which Belinda is talking about? Do we fear our own cultural inadequacies, class guilt, and asymmetrical power in dealing with such situations?

Or, perhaps we do live on different ontological and psychological planes. What, for example, does one make of the following comments by an initially sceptical white community worker (an accountant for the ≠Khomani Sîsen Craft Project) on the relationship between sand, San, and spirituality:

It’s harsh here … they’re out of sand, they fit here, they are part of the trees, the bushes and the plants and the medical things and the spirits going on here. I see them each and every day eat sand … This is something Lena Malgas told me…But eating sand is part of her. It cleans her. They sleep on the sand because, like she said, it’s like a massage for her. It’s a free massage. It’s comfortable. Even there they go to cook. They cook their food on sand. Spirit, the spirits are in the sand. The food we eat, this is a desert, the food we eat, comes out of the sand. Underneath the sand they know much about, not on top of the sand but what’s underneath the dunes. They will start digging a hole there … There’s a plant. They can survive. They can dig a hole and sleep in it … then Jakob Malgas said that if he walks without shoes, on 56, the sand will be up to 60 degrees. He will walk 15 kms on hot, hot, hot sand and then he can’t wear shoes. I asked him why doesn’t he wear shoes because it was his birthday and I said let’s buy him a pair of shoes and he said, ‘No!’ You need to be in contact with the sand the whole time … his magnetic field does not touch his soul when he’s not on the sand (Kleynhans, interview, 2002).

I think about the relationship between researchers and researched, existentialism and essentialism, San and sand. How do I analyse this ontology and experience so obviously alien to my own? I came up with the following considerations:

a) Are my/our informants/hosts/co-researchers able to recognise themselves and their experiences in my/our story/ies?
b) Is our writing intelligible to our informants/sources/hosts, as represented/ translated?
c) Does the resulting narrative include, if implicitly, a theory (explanation) from below? Does it critically engage with whatever theories or methodologies we bring to the encounter?
d) Are we using theory strategically? Is it useful in our sources’/hosts’/ informants’ daily lives? If so, how? Are our encounters mindful of power relations, deceit, and manipulation?
e) Where does the noumenal world described by Kleynhans fit in?
f) What do we return, symbolically, to the community?

Fire, method and symbolic exchange
Answering these questions is our collective intention. I will dwell on some here. On symbolic returns and noumenal experience, the answer was gratifying. At Erin in the Northern Cape, Charlize had performed an aboriginal fire dance for the ≠Khomani. The spectators were in awe, and commented vigorously during the performance about the possibility of Charlize hurting and burning herself. In contrast, at Ngwatle, Kort-Jan’s family were initially afraid and covered their eyes, fearing that the fire would bewitch them. After the first two of four dances,Charlize complained of being ignored by the group, huddled as they were around their own fire on that bitterly cold night, many with their eyes closed, singing, their backs to her. Then the !Xoo became interested, and they finally incorporated Charlize’s performance into their own fire and trance dance. The two fires and performances initially ran parallel, and then merged as Charlize herself ‘became’ the fire. The dancing women formed a crescent around Charlize in her performative space. The Bushmen did three dances: an enactment of a trance dance; the enactment of a buck and a jackal, by the men, joined by a small child; and the women’s dance. By this stage the women had bridged the space between their fire and Charlize’s fire. A ying-yang relationship fused what had previously been separate, almost antagonistic, but closely adjacent, performative events. No one had ever danced for the Bushmen here, though one old man, no doubt in response to the swirling fire chains, was gesturing wildly and shouting ‘karate!’ and ‘Bruce Lee!’. Vista, one of Kort-Jan’s sons, told him he was nuts (cf. Reinhardt 2003; Sætre 2003).

Earlier the community had thought we had asked them to perform a fire dance for us, and they wanted to charge us – groups of men and later women visited our site over two days to inform us of the costs involved. Mary explained that Charlize would perform for them, ‘from the heart’. They could watch the dance, or not. We would not pay them to dance – our money had run out. Two days later, when they realised our intention, they danced spontaneously. What had started as an extended negotiation over commodification ended as an organic, intercultural unity. Two days later Charlize again performed the dance, mainly at the request of women who had not seen it. This time she performed in the enclosure of Kort-Jan’s abode. The prediction made by Mary that the developing organic fusion of the first performative event would not be repeated was borne out – this time the women and some male spectators watched spellbound – the separation between performers and audience now firmly established.

Our own group had different takes on the process: two students were videoing, Tim’s wider frame identifying the incomplete semi-circle forming around Charlize, with himself included on the other side, completing the circle; Marit, close to the fire, described a sensurround feeling of inclusion, of both us and the Bushmen, with the singing and clapping, a woman chanting words inches from Nelia’s face, a crouched, face-to-face demonstration of how to make the clicks. Where Tim videoed wide shots, Marit had the frenetic Rouchian character of a Les maîtres fous. For three other students it seemed chaotic: Lauren feared that the initial exclusion of Charlize would be disappointing for her, and Vanessa described the strange mixture of the metaphysical/spiritual and performance unfolding, fearing a general charismatic meltdown of sanity. Later, however, she realised that perhaps ‘healing could be effected through the unification of the group in dance, through the catharsis of self-expression’ (McLennan-Dodd 2003b). For a few moments, the two cultures united as a group. Mary was the one who first identified the nature of the existential interaction. Vista was directing the Bushmen, commentating what would be done next, requesting that Charlize dance again once her paraffin (kerosene) had burned out. The question of payment was never mentioned again.

Being there
How does one respond to accusations of ‘bias’, lack of objectivity, and so on? I realise that I am now concerned with perception, memory and experience. If this is what people think or feel, then it is real, for them at least, if not for others participating in these relations. How do we understand what we are told, what do we ourselves experience during the encounter? Material veracity or otherwise can be checked, but it is necessary that the perceptions be taken seriously by all concerned as it is in the realm of the discursive that interpretation is in fact constructed. But, given Ngwatle’s first encounter with the request, that they assumed that we wanted them to perform for us; and that for us the encounter originated in our desire (an emotion) to perform for them; the resulting explosion of unexpected interpretations clearly had a completely different sense of the encounter because of the unexpected way the experience turned out. In effect, the series of performances, reactions, responses, and discussions, all began with the two divergent encounters, and yet these outcomes showed a qualitative growth from their respective beginnings despite being something quite new. A wholly new semiosis had taken place under our collective noses.

What does this kind of interaction tell us about how we relate to, and interact with, the plethora of trusts, NGOs, committees, safari companies, government departments, local officials, and other bodies all jostling for, and claiming jurisdiction, over people and places, access and interaction? Power relations are at work everywhere. Not everyone benefits equally. The ‘subjects’ of ‘development’ are acutely aware of their positions in the chain of relations.

How do we absorb and learn from the experiential dimensions of intercultural interactions? ‘Being there’ is the prime mode of knowing for us; textualism mainly operates through codes – knowing via theory. The screening of Kalahari fires (videoed at Ngwatle in 1995) in July 2002 from the back of the Sani reconnects those depicted with a viewing of their ‘labour’ as ‘actors’. They feel empowered in the process, especially when they recognise people and places. Kort-Jan became very emotional when he recognised his late brother, Petrus. Others expressed great appreciation for the distance we travel every year to visit Ngwatle, which they realised for the first time on seeing the map in Kalahari fires. Us watching the audiences watching the video is a greatly emotional experience as the audiences interact with the images, talk to each other, and recognise themselves.

One Tampere delegate suggested that all this to-and-froing, endless discussion of our papers around campfires, on dusty verges, driving around to meet the clan all over the Northern Cape, Botswana and Namibia thousands of kilometres away from Durban must be time-consuming and an impediment to productivity. Papers may take a long time to prepare, but when they are published I know that they are, for the most part, consensual ethnographies. They are process rather than product, we theorise and write about everything we experience and can remember and/or record. Mary explains to Kort-Jan and Johannes as we drive to the hunting grounds that my Sani is my office, that I work as I drive, type on my laptop, and read and copy-edit when I am a passenger, and conduct seminars with the passengers, asking questions, reading narratives, discussing theory and observations. These kinds of writing, videoing, narrative, also reveal much about ourselves, our own insecurities and intra-group conflicts (cf. Sætre 2003), our own hang-ups and beliefs, to those with whom we work in the Kalahari. We are seen by them to be people like them, rather than just as passers-by, travellers-in-time, or as conducting information-trading/raiding parties. They also learn something about us. Damien was immediately treated with great respect by the ¹Khomani and felt an instant bond, contrasting with his experiences in urban Upington. This from a 20-year-old who, when first venturing onto the fringe of the Kalahari during a family holiday at the age of 14, asked, ‘Is there M-Net (pay-TV) there?’

At the spiritual
Dialogical autoethnography, as I shall now refer to our research practice, in the Third and Fourth Worlds at least, needs to examine the relations between both the real and noumenal dimensions. The positions inhabited by the ancestors are all important (cf. Kasoma 1996). Where Christians and Moslems cite their printed texts when calling on the ‘truth/s’ offered/interpreted by their respective deities, like all oral societies the ¹Khomani simply collapse signifiers into signifieds, and then persuade some of their more analytically inclined colleagues like Lizelle Kleynhans to do the same. Belinda Kruiper gave essence to the notion of ‘op die grond’:
… they know every dune, they know every sand grain, they know the wind of death, they know the wind of joy, they know the rain of death and the rain of joy … And, it’s the sand, it’s the crystals in the sand, and I think it’s the magic of the Kalahari, because, ever since I’ve been there from the first day I kept on feeling there’s healing powers in the grains. There’s just something about the sand, and they’re out of the sand. And Tannie Antas said to me one day, ‘ek weet, as ek bloei en ek gaan lê op die sand, daai bloed, dan word ek weer een met waar ek vandaan kom’ [‘I know, if I bleed, and I go and lie on the sand, then I become again one with where I came from’]. That’s why, when we bleed we put a plaster on, they immediately cover it with sand, and it will stop the blood … And Ouma Antas once said to me, every time you cut yourself or you hurt in the desert, you have to mix your blood with the sand, because you are the blood, you are the Kalahari (interview, 2001b).

They lie, we lie: Getting on with anthropology (Metcalf 2002) is the title of a book that comes to mind. Nelia said she wasn’t always able to tell when she was being strung a line, though the increasingly elaborate yarns about why we should give to begging ≠Khomani were easily transparent. The point, however, is about issues of representation, and what our hosts want (or will permit) to go on the record. I wouldn’t call what we do oral history, but we are producing something of a type-scripted record, writing the ≠Khomani and the Ngwatle community into history without eliminating their personalities and names. That’s what seems to be confounding to some of our NGO-critics: they demand a balanced, objective, and logically dispassionate description, written up by ‘trained anthropologists’, from which the machinations of ‘trouble-makers’, whom we prefer to identify as organic intellectuals (Gramsci 1971), like Belinda, are eliminated. Articulations and disarticulation, methodologies that can capture and represent memory in dialogical and dynamic ways, are at the core of what we are trying to understand. It is in these relations of force, indeterminacies of translation, and ontologies that bypass each other in the wind which we are trying to (discursively) root in the shifting sands of (interacting) experience. For example, at Klein Masetleng Pan, after a day of seeing few animals, Kort-Jan (interview, 2002) told us, ‘this is a very sly pan because it knows that people (us) used to live here and a lot of people (tourists) come here. So it doesn’t allow the animals to come during the day, they only come at night when it knows the people are asleep’.

When first applying for a grant to pursue our studies of cultural tourism in the Northern Cape, the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) panel pointed out that the ≠Khomani were over-researched; a SASI official complained that the Kruipers were being researched to death; why not find another set of subjects? In contrast, Roger Carter, then manager of the Lodge, told us he would refuse to talk to us on his and the Lodge’s relationship with the ≠Khomani if we were ‘bunny huggers’. He wanted to test whether we also opaquely had our ‘heads in the sand’, like so many development workers and agencies. The August 2000 thirty-minute interview stretched into two hours, then five years, of fruitful interaction and discussion. Roger told us about William Ellis, a University of the Western Cape agricultural researcher, who shared our position, who described the Kruipers as ‘a text book people’ engaged in ‘organised begging’, and whom development had passed by notwithstanding the R8 million which the government and donors had sunk into the area since early 1999. Belinda commented that little of the NGO-donor funding trickled down to the community. The main beneficiaries seem to be bureaucrats, NGOs, local committees, and the individuals associated with them. This, we agreed, is the bureaucratisation of development. The tradisionele mense (‘traditional people’), certainly, have little to show for this investment – not even the roof of the roadside lean-to. If being researched to death was indeed occurring, perhaps a different set of questions was indicated? What drew this community in the first instance to a kind of poor-on-purpose existence? Why do they want to cling onto their ‘traditions’, now refracted through and responding to the Western World’s construction of a pure, primitive people, who do not ‘feel’ the cold? Why, unlike the far greater number of ≠Khomani who are pastoralists and settled in small towns, does this small Kruiper clan persist in wanting a traditional existence? Apart from the more obvious explanations involving internal clan power relations (cf. White 1995), educational deprivation, and apartheid, something else appears to us to be at work, as indicated in the comments reproduced above from Belinda and Lizelle. ‘The freedom to be’, suggests Belinda, written on a plaque in her Blinkwater grass kitchen. ‘They don’t like to work when the wind blows. In the apartheid years they had to work for farmers, for the Gemsbok Park, and their freedom turned them into where they are today; they want to just not do anything for anybody but themselves. It’s choices’ (Belinda Kruiper, interview, 2002).

For our sources, the idiosyncratic choice made by the Kruipers seems to offer a connection in recovering an existential, essentialist, understanding of life and freedom. Our photo-elicitations identified such narrative streaks (cf. Mlauzi 2002). The condition chosen by the Kruipers cannot simply be measured in terms of freedom from poverty, from the presence/lack of material possessions (cf. Jeffries 2002), from spiritual dependency on the environment. ‘Op die grond’, a recurring epithet amongst our sources, is another take on the concept of freedom. Belinda contrasts the relative freedoms of the Kalahari and Durban:
You could sleep in the Molopo Hotel and you could have the wines and dines, but you can have that every day. Every day! You can never have the sand and the risk of a scorpion and the risk of a snake, and just relax, and sleep and wake up, and realise that you’re actually not dirty, you actually don’t stink. It depends on where you are and what part of the country. In Durban I find I’m stinking all the time. And this morning Prof.’s wife spoke about the coast and the muck and then I realised that’s why Glynis [Belinda’s sister-in-law] and everybody’s so cleansing here.[iv] Now I know it’s necessary, but being so cooped up I suddenly just wanna be in the Kalahari because there’s not such a big … about washing your clothes all the time, because it’s dust. It’s pure sand. It’s such a privilege to be there, because it’s just crystals. It’s just iron oxide and crystals, so who could be dirty? If you think in terms of the Kalahari dunes being a bath full of iron oxide and crystals, and it’s rejuvenating for your body, and the stars as your blessings and the sun and the wind, because even if the sand blows in your eyes, it’s just healing your skin as you go along, then research students can think about coming there differently, and see it as an adventure and just to be vulnerable. And trust Prof. Tomaselli, he knows (Belinda Kruiper, interview, 2001b).

As I type this first draft in the very cold and dark Molopo Lodge Lounge – I now mention that I am recovering from a nasty viral infection, which is why I did not visit the Kruipers with my students today – I am distracted by a large screen TV with a Discovery Channel documentary on Africa on my right, rock ‘n roll music emanating from the pub behind me, children and their parents wondering through and playing snooker at the bar. Later, Tina, who asked for a lift home with her water canisters, filled up by a road worker from his truck, says that because she hasn’t got anything to give me for the lift – she can sing to me. Tina and Toppies serenade us from the backseat as impala dart across the road in the sunset. Silikat and Jon-Jon hang onto the roof racks, urgently yelling directions that I already know. These are the ordinary people, the folks who feel ignored by the official organisations. The Discovery documentary is one about environmental romance, great rivers and spectacular sunsets, not about poverty, communal alcoholism, dispossession, and spiritual alienation. It’s from the white, English-speaking Western presenter’s perspective. When the three remaining students arrived from Upington, the first thing they commented on was the TV-set – they thought they were coming to the wilderness. That’s next week, in Botswana, I tell them.

‘Groot’ Koos Lamprecht, the then huge and imposing manager of the Molopo Lodge, tells me that business is good and that we are able to book a room at short notice for our injured and ill members. Koos’ brother, who owns the Bimbo’s fast food chain (my students’ late night favourite), bought the Lodge in 2001. Belinda says she also heads straight for Bimbo’s in Upington – it’s clean, good and affordable. The Lodge’s staff assure me that the fountains of water bursting through the sand in the campsite near our tents, despite the occasional wafts of soak pit smell, is just the swimming pool back wash, not raw sewerage. I just hope the stream bypasses our tent city – six in all. In the distance I see my Sani weaving over the countryside in the students’ search for informants and those to whom we need to return photographic representations of themselves exposed on our previous trips. Damien, Sherieen and Linje, comment on how enthusiastically they are received by the ≠Khomani. On his arrival at Witdraai, Damien phoned and told me that the people they spoke to think of me as some kind of God. So when I get there I make myself scarce, later explaining that I needed time to get over my infection. They tell me they also have been ill. We agree implicitly – we are all human, imperfect. They also need to realise that we are a team, that I am merely a facilitator, not a saviour. Nelia, thanks to her Afrikaans fluency and empathetic personality, is the female deity – but she explains that none of us will give lifts to intoxicated individuals. They agree and apologise for harassing us the previous night – and then nag us again the next day.

Nelia is given an ankle massage by Elsie, who diagnoses a crack in the bone. Formerly a physiotherapist, Nelia later muses on the contradictions: illiterate Elsie had been totally drunk the previous night; the next morning she was demonstrating a sophisticated informally learned skill, repeating exactly what Nelia’s doctor told her, expertise which Nelia joked had taken her nearly four years to master! I wonder why they need the alcohol. Belinda suggests that the ‘true’ ≠Khomani artists are the ones who tend to be drunk and possibly use their inebriation to retaliate against the alienation caused by disempowerment by disrupting CPA-meetings. I also wonder why spousal abuse is so rife. I wonder why this group is, in the words of Carter (2000), committing ‘communal suicide’ in their very moment of freedom. I think about Toppies’ analysis of the situation illustrated in his buried sketch – is he perhaps an organic intellectual of the Gramscian kind, but one who feels let down by the technical intellectuals who wield the real influence – compounded by the disempowerment he feels because of his own illiteracy? The politics is sometimes as complicated as it was in Gramsci’s Italy of the 1920s (cf. Davidson 1977), but the resolutions are too often drowned by waves of alcohol, multiple cycles of dependency, and existential alienation. How does any development project respond to these kinds of difficulties? I explain that we can help to communicate Toppies’ compelling illustrated analysis to the powers that be, but that he should not expect any miracles.

Chains of relations, relations of chains
We know about the Enron, World.Com, and Xerox cowboys arrogantly riding off into the sunset with their ill-gotten fortunes, imperilling national and global economies, with Bush wailing on about the need for good corporate governance. Here in the bitingly cold desert sunset we wonder at the seemingly obscure chain of relations, and relation of nations, NGOs and beneficiaries, which seem to encircle the San, and possibly First Peoples everywhere. Toppies and his group say they have no idea if anyone pays the permissions requested, and if so, where the money is invested. Linje wonders at the incongruity of it all. Just who is dependent upon whom? This reminds me of the Botswana safari company’s injunction that we get permission from the area’s Trust to visit the Ngwatle community that invites us as ‘friends’. Why do we need third party permission to visit them? Belinda does not need permission from the Durban municipality to visit us. But then, the city is not concessioned out to business, NGOs or anyone else, though Westville did once have a MacDonald’s. The nearest Bimbo’s is on Westville’s border with Durban. Is this the ultimate commodification?[v] The ambivalence/indeterminacy/ambiguity of the researcher in the postmodern world, itself fractured into multiple realities, evades analysis, and eschews logic other than that of Thatcherist cost recovery by one means or another. What, then, does the safari company expect our research to look like? During apartheid the masses would chant: ‘We shall break free of our chains’. Agitprop actors were often arrested for having chains amongst their props. What symbolic form do the post-apartheid, postmodern research, post-Thatcherist chains take?

Academics work under similar cycles of exploitation where everyone – largely other than us – make a mint from our labour, alienating us from our work (for example, multinational publishing industries being multiply subsidised by taxpayers in the so-called free market where the writers and their employers are relieved from ownership of their own published work). We also thus locate ourselves in this nexus of epistemological, ideological and theoretical confusion in which we regularly sign away our intellectual property. One of the advantages of visiting remote areas is to get as stark as possible a view of the complexly interreticulated matrices of often-bizarre contradictions and messy empirical clutter. We academics can at least obtain a degree of psychic income by theorising about our chains of exploitation – this is less easy for the uneducated to understand or accept. Hence their constant complaints about feeling used and abused; and arguments over who owns information gleaned from interviews and surveys. Our ≠Khomani subjects do not realise that we are all used and abused: some of us realise this, most don’t. Certain kinds of theft are legal; other kinds are illegal. Some of us who have a modicum of class power can live with this regime and engage it; the Lumpenproletariat complain about theft and get dopped (‘drunk’), doped and dumped. Is the burden of realisation freedom, or alienation? Periphery-core relations take on a whole new meaning – inversion, reversal – under such conditions. Commodification processes in the periphery are seemingly in advance of developments at the core. I wonder about the Aborignals now on the big-screen TV – the screen cuts to a large Australian city, and I lose interest. Now the set has been switched to Reality TV, a programme on mysteries and the paranormal – perhaps we have overly restricted ourselves to the ‘normal’ – the development paradigms of modernity don’t understand the noumenal, the para-normal, and essentialistic spiritualistic realms of making sense. Why are there no less than seven churches in Loubos, which numbers but a few hundred people, a local white missionary from Port Elizabeth asks me. He answers his own question: it’s a matter of class. Why have we forgotten class analysis in the postmodern world? Our aimless travels in the desert do sometimes come up with answers, if not the development solutions.

I worked through the first draft of this paper with Belinda in their prefabricated hut at Blinkwater, while Vetkat and Juri played their guitar outside in the sun, the students basking on the ground. Belinda offered instant comments as we scrolled down the screen. My wife and colleague, Ruth Teer-Tomaselli, called to say she was leaving for Barcelona, the International Association of Media and Communication Research Conference, where she is also discussing development communication. She is presenting it in the political economy section. There is certainly a lesson in this choice. Politics. Economics. Why do so little power, investment and benefit trickle down to the folks on the ground? This is a question that has sorely exercised the minds of thousands of development studies scholars.

Returning home
We return to South Africa via the Park. Astonishingly, a tourist found Charlize’s passport. A note was enclosed complaining about the mess, and the noise we had allegedly made at the campsite at which it was found. We think she is writing about others – we don’t know which day it was found. Back at the entrance to the Park we are told to check in at the border post. We immediately realise that we had been accepted into Botswana without legally departing from South Africa. The affable South African policeman says he will have to charge us with the offence. Thus are we all administratively made into criminals. The San who used to roam all three adjacent countries are now restricted to the respective countries of their residence only. The policeman relents and lets us go – as tourists we still have some travel rights, even if we do break the law. The sand may have an existential relationship for traditional Bushmen. But the sand/San have no rights to the internationally shifting dunes from which they take their being. They are confined within borders, restricted by border posts and managed by a variety of structures that seem largely remote from their ways of making sense. They may be ‘op die grond’ but being on the ground is not necessarily the same as being part of it. As Ouma !Una told us on being asked about what the appellation ‘San’ meant to her: ‘I am of the earth. This earth is the san[d]. ¹Khomani. ¹Khomani. From the san[d]’. ‘San’ has no meaning except in politics. Sand means everything.

NOTES
[i] Anna Swart was responding to a question regarding her preferred use of naming. She said that she understood ‘sand’ but not ‘San’.
[ii] Pretorius, who was studying business part-time, observed: ‘When we arrived, I felt like some sort of demi-God from the Western world (The Gods must be crazy). I expected the Bushmen to be humbled by our civilized culture wanting to know their opinions. They wanted to know what they would receive in return and were quite argumentative about allowing us to ask them their viewpoints – although this attitude might also have been due to the fact that they had consumed vast quantities of alcohol’.
[iii] Work on reconstructing the road began in early 2005.
[iv] In response to Belinda’s view about being dirty in humid Durban as opposed to not being dirty in the Kalahari, Pretorius observed wryly: ‘At least in Durban one doesn’t have to be in a constant state of non-sobriety just to cope with the elements that she claims cleanse her. I think their spiritual connection to the sand/the elements might also be due to the constant innate use of marijuana as it is purported to invoke or inhabit one’s spiritual side and I’ve heard many users of the drug claim that they feel more spiritual when they’re under the influence of marijuana’.
[v] No, says Marit, as she checks her hospital bill on the way back. The bill itemises each and every item, even those costing less than $0.10, and she wonders at the cost of the bookkeeping labour imposed on nurses who are required to spend inordinate amounts of time on trivial cost determinations when they should be looking after patients.

Democracy in Africa ~ In response to requests from colleagues and friends, we have assembled a reading list on African Politics. This reading list is collated in solidarity with those who are currently attempting to decolonise the university across Africa, and beyond. We welcome your recommendations of outstanding scholarship to add to this bibliography.

NB: Currently, this list focuses on English translations and texts but we are in the midst of developing lists in other languages and would welcome your suggestions below.

Go to: http://democracyinafrica.org/decolonising-the-university-the-african-politics-reading-list/

Gesproken talen Marokko

In Noord-Afrika worden van oudsher Berberse talen gesproken. De geschiedenis leert ons dat het altijd al een gebied is geweest waar verschillende culturen elkaar hebben ontmoet en waar verschillende talen naast elkaar hebben bestaan.
Zo werd er tijdens de Romeinse overheersing van Noord-Afrika (van de tweede eeuw voor Christus tot de zesde eeuw na Christus), naast genoemde Berberse talen, Latijn en Punisch gesproken. In het begin van de achtste eeuw na Christus begon de islam zich over Noord-Afrika uit te breiden en dat bracht een verspreiding van Arabische spreektalen met zich mee. Dit proces verliep in het ene gebied langzamer dan in het andere. Zo was waarschijnlijk de overgrote meerderheid van de Marokkaanse bevolking tot ver in de 19e eeuw Berbertalig. In Marokko werden tijdens de periode van koloniale overheersing (1912-1956) Frans en Spaans aan de reeds aanwezige talen toegevoegd.
“In negen landen van Noord-Afrika worden tegenwoordig Berberse talen gesproken. Het totale aantal sprekers is ongeveer vijfentwintig miljoen. We onderscheiden acht à tien verschillende Berberse talen die weliswaar taalkundig sterk verwant, maar in praktijk in wisselende mate onderling ver­staan­baar zijn. Als taalfamilie behoren Berberse talen bij het Afroaziatisch”.

Verreweg de meeste Berbertaligen vinden we in Marokko, een land met 30 miljoen inwoners. Naar schatting de helft van de Marokkanen spreekt van huis uit een van de drie Marokkaanse Berberse talen (voor de geografische verspreiding zie het kaartje): Rifijns Berber (Tarifiyt) in het noorden, met ongeveer twee miljoen sprekers; Midden-Atlas Berber (Tamazight) in het midden, met ongeveer vier miljoen sprekers en Tasjelhiyt Berber (Tasjelhiyt of Tasusi­yt) in het zuiden, met ongeveer negen miljoen sprekers.
Veel Berbertaligen zijn uit hun oorspronkelijke woongebied geëmi­greerd, zowel naar gebieden binnen hun eigen vaderland als naar andere landen. De grootste stad van Marokko, Casablanca, is voor zestig procent Berbertalig; één op de twaalf inwoners van Parijs spreekt een Berberse taal.
Als gevolg van arbeidsmigratie vanuit Marokko, vanaf de jaren zeventig van de vorige eeuw, hebben zich in Nederland veel Marokkanen gevestigd. Thans, 2005, wonen er ongeveer 300.000 Marok­kanen in Nederland. Hiervan is drie­kwart Berbertalig, dus ongeveer 220.000 mensen, waarvan waarschijnlijk 180.000 Rifberbers en 40.000 Berbertaligen uit de Midden-Atlas en Zuid-Marokko.
Het Tasjelhiyt Berber van Zuid-Marokko is naar aantal sprekers de grootste Berberse taal van Marokko. De noordelijke grens van het Tasjelhiyt Berber-taalgebied wordt gevormd door de noordelijke rand van de Hoge-Atlas; de zuidelijke grens is de denkbeeldige lijn van Foum Zguid, een plaats ten zuiden van Ouarzazate, in het oosten, tot het plaatsje Ifni aan de kust in het westen. De oostelijke grens is de denkbeeldige lijn van Demnate, over Ouarzazate naar Foum Zguid. De westelijke grens is de kust van de Atlantische oceaan, tussen de steden Essaouira en Ifni. Ten zuiden van de stad Demnate gaat het Tasjelhiyt Berber geleidelijk over in het Berber van de Midden-Atlas.

as-Sûs al-Aqsâ
Het Tasjelhiyt Berberse taalgebied, dat in oppervlakte ongeveer vier keer zo groot is als Nederland, was bij de oude Arabische geografen en historici bekend als as-Sûs al-Aqsâ “de verafgelegen Sous”. De Sous is de naam van de grote vlakte ten oosten van Agadir. Vandaar dat het Tasjelhiyt Berber ook wel Sous Berber wordt genoemd. In Franstalige werken noemt men deze taal gewoonlijk “Chleuh” of “Tachelhiyt”.

In het hedendaagse Marokko hebben Berberse talen zeer recent een officiële status gekregen. In 2002 is er een koninklijk instituut voor de Berberse cultuur opgericht (Institut Royal de la Culture Amazighe) dat onder meer de invoering van Berberse talen in het onderwijs moet voorbereiden. Officieel wordt er op scholen en universiteiten nog steeds geen onderwijs in Berberse talen gegeven. Veel Arabischtalige Marokkanen hebben moeite met deze officiële erkenning van Berberse talen en herhalen hun vooroordelen ten aanzien van deze talen voor ieder die het horen wil. Berberse talen zouden in hun ogen niet veel meer zijn dan verbasterde dialecten van het Arabisch, het zouden dialecten zijn “zonder enige grammatica”, het zouden talen zijn van eenvoudige boeren uit de bergen (ibudrarn), talen zonder enige culturele waarde, etc. Berbertalige intellectuelen beschouwen dit als naweeën van het pan-arabisch gedachtegoed, met zijn onrealistische ideeën over taal. In hun ogen wordt aan het op scholen gedoceerde Modern Standaard Arabisch een te hoge status toegekend, ten koste van Arabische spreektalen en Berberse talen.
Wie zich verdiept in de Berberse cultuur zal ontdekken dat deze een geheel eigen karakter heeft en een van de belangrijke grondslagen vormt van de Marokkaanse cultuur in het algemeen.

Ayt Umarg
De culturele eigenheid van de Berberse gebieden is merkbaar en voelbaar voor wie er voor openstaat. Als je door het Tasjelhiyt-talige zuidwesten van Marokko reist, kom je vroeg of laat in aanraking met vormen van orale literatuur. Deze streek is bekend om zijn rijke vertelcultuur en zijn gezongen poëzie. De Tasjelhiyt Berbers van Zuid-Marokko worden ayt umarg “de mensen van de poëzie” genoemd. In ieder dorp tref je mensen aan die bekend zijn als verteller van verhalen, ieder dorp heeft een dichter-zanger (rrays, meervoud rrways) of dichteres-zangeres (rraysa, meervoud rraysat). Men verkoopt en beluistert er cassettebanden van de eigen, locale rrways of van de landelijk bekende, zoals de grote Lhadj Bel‘id, Mohammed Demsiri, of bekende rraysat als Taba‘mrant en Raqiya Demsiriyya. Als je geluk hebt word je uitgenodigd voor een ahwasj, een dansfeest dat in de avond en in de nacht wordt gehouden, een feest waaraan de hele dorpsgemeenschap meedoet en waarin lokale dichters of dichteressen de show stelen. Tijdens de stiltes tussen de dansbewegingen bestoken ze elkaar met dichtregels: liefdespoëzie, natuurpoëzie, maar veelal ook toespelingen op voor iedereen bekende gebeurtenissen of situaties in het dorp.

Ibn Khaldoen (1332-1406), een van de grote denkers en historici van de Arabische wereld, schreef de Berbers niet alleen een centrale rol toe in de geschiedenis van Noord-Afrika, hij roemde met name ook hun rijke vertelcultuur: De Berbers vertellen zoveel van dergelijke verhalen dat je er boekdelen mee zou kunnen vullen, als je de moeite zou nemen om ze op te schrijven.
Rond 1850 werden de eerste volksverhalen in het Tasjelhiyt Berber door Europese, veelal Franse, onderzoekers verzameld en gepubliceerd. Vanaf 1850 tot nu hebben auteurs als de Slane, de Rochemonteix, Stumme, Destaing, Laoust, Justinard, Jordan, Roux, Leguil, Galand, Galand-Pernet, Boukous en Stroomer tekstmateriaal gepubliceerd, waaronder volksverhalen. Al dit gepubliceerde tekstmateriaal is van groot belang zowel voor studie van de oraal-literaire traditie van Zuid-Marokko als voor de studie van het Tasjelhiyt Berber als taal.
Tegenwoordig vinden we steeds meer orale literatuur, verhalen en liederen die op CD’s, video’s, cassettebanden en grammofoonplaten zijn uitgebracht en die eveneens een grote culturele waarde vertegenwoordigen.

In de loop van de jaren heb ik vooral verhalen verzameld die typerend zijn voor de vertelcultuur van Zuid-Marokko. Daarbij heb ik gestreefd naar variatie in vorm en inhoud: van toversprookjes tot boertige verhalen, van anecdotes tot kinderlijke niemandalletjes, van onnozele grappen tot slimmigheden, van dierverhalen tot heiligenverhalen.
Ook heb ik enkele verhalen uitgekozen waarin oraal-literaire vertelstructuren duidelijk zichtbaar zijn, bijvoorbeeld verhalen met een “klassieke” opbouw in eenheden van drie of verhalen waarin dezelfde of vergelijkbare motieven zijn verweven. Bij de laatstgenoemde verhalen zal de lezer denken dat hij bepaalde passages al eerder heeft gelezen, om vervolgens te merken dat het verhaal toch weer op een andere manier verder gaat.

El-khla
Sommige hoofdfiguren in de verhalen zijn niet specifiek voor de vertelcultuur van Zuid-Marokko, maar komen ook elders voor. Zo is de figuur van de menseneter of menseneetster, die ver van de bewoonde wereld in de wildernis (el-khla) woont en een bedreiging vormt voor meestal jonge kinderen kenmerkend voor de Arabische en Berberse verhalen van heel Noord-Afrika. Hetzelfde geldt voor de verhalen over de grappenmaker Djeha, een figuur die zowel in de Maghreb-landen als in de rest van het Midden-Oosten bekend is. Wel kenmerkend voor Zuid-Marokko is, bijvoorbeeld, het motief van de mooie jonge held die zichzelf lelijk maakt door een buikvlies van een geslacht schaap over het hoofd te trekken om te lijken op iemand met schurft. Hij wordt dan met rust gelaten en kan zijn plannen uitvoeren.

Sommige verhalen bevatten motieven die we ook in verhalen uit andere bekende orale tradities tegenkomen. Een contaminatie van de figuur van koning Midas en Alexander de Grote, de koning “met de hoorns (dhû l-qarnayn)”. Koning Midas wilde geheim houden, dat hij ezelsoren had. Hij droeg daarom een grote muts om ze aan het oog te onttrekken, alleen zijn kapper wist ervan, maar die moest zijn mond houden. Dit geheim viel de arme kapper echter zeer zwaar en om het ooit maar één keer te kunnen zeggen groef hij een diepe kuil, ging erin staan en riep: “Koning Midas heeft ezelsoren.” Later groeide daar riet en als de wind er doorheen waaide hoorde men die woorden. In onze Berberse verhalen gebeurt er iets dergelijks. Een jongen die het haar van de koning heeft afgeschoren ziet dat de koning hoorns heeft en moet dit geheim houden. Hij speelt de melodie van het lied “de koning heeft hoorns” op een rietfluit. De rietfluit valt in een put en schiet wortel. Daarna zingt het jonge riet het lied “de koning heeft hoorns”.
Het avontuur van de zestiende eeuwse Zuid-Marokkaanse heilige Sidi Hmad Oe Moesa die, gekleed in een schaapsvel, tussen de schapen, ontsnapt aan een één-ogige menseneter doet denken aan de ontsnapping van Odysseus uit de grot van de cycloop Polyfemus.
Ook zijn er thema’s en motieven te vinden die wij uit de collectie van de gebroeders Grimm kennen. Naast vertellingen waarin dieren een hoofdrol spelen, staan verhalen waarin gelachen wordt om de koraanleraar, of verhalen waarin lokale islamitische heiligen centraal staan.

Veel figuren uit de Bijbel (Noach, Mozes, Abraham, Job, Salomon, Jezus, Maria, etc.) worden ook in de koraan genoemd. In de islamitische traditie gelden deze figuren als profeten of als heiligen. Verhalen rondom dergelijke figuren zijn verzameld in een zeer populaire bundel die in de hele islamitische wereld te koop is, de qisas al-anbiyâ’ “de verhalen van de profeten”. Echo’s van deze verhalen klinken door in de volksverhalen over Koning Salomon en of Noach.
Hier en daar komen we ook etiologische, dat wil zeggen, redengevende motieven of verhalen tegen: “en daarom heeft de vleermuis geen veren” , “en daarom laat de panter mensen met rust” ,  “en daarom is de zee zout.”
Verscheidene malen ontmoeten we het motief van de hoofdpersoon die een slavin bij een put ontmoet en door haar bemiddeling weer wordt toegelaten bij zijn geliefde of bij zijn zuster. Het “toevallig” op één plaats samenkomen van hoofdpersonen aan het einde van een verhaal is een bekend motief in volksverhalen. .

In het verhaal van Hamed Schapekeutel wordt gespeeld met onwerkelijke dimensies en onwaarschijnlijke situaties. Het verhaal gaat over een brutaal, onsympathiek kind, zo groot als een schapekeutel dat in zijn eentje de onderbalk van een weefgetouw draagt, dat mensen op de vlucht jaagt en dat, zelfs vanuit de maag en de blaas van een koe en vanuit de maag van een jakhals, zijn dorpsgenoten nog lastig valt.
De Nederlandse lezer valt de droge, harde vertelstijl op: je vindt in deze verhalen geen grote emoties, eerder droge verslagen van handelingen. Geen psychologische diepte bij de hoofdpersonen, geen overwegingen alvorens te handelen, geen emoties na verlies van een dierbare. Je vindt grote, moeiteloze en emotieloze radikale veranderingen in de loyaliteit van de hoofdpersonen.
We worden, net als in de verhalen van de gebroeders Grimm, met wreedheden geconfronteerd die overigens altijd op zeer onderkoelde wijze naar voren worden gebracht. Er worden in de verhalen mensen onthoofd, oorlellen en pinken afgesneden, kinderen achtergelaten in een bos, kinderen vetgemest, er wordt gedreigd met het villen van de gezichtshuid.

Zoals vaak in volksverhalen treden er vreemde wezens op of dieren die kunnen spreken en waarmee mensen dus ook gewoon kunnen communiceren.
Belangrijke veranderingen in een verhaal vinden soms op mechanische wijze plaats: door het eten van een vijg krijgt iemand een hoorn op zijn hoofd, door het eten van de volgende vijg een tweede hoorn; daarna nog een vijg en de eerste hoorn verdwijnt, een laatste vijg en de tweede hoorn verdwijnt; door het draaien aan een ring gebeurt er iets nieuws; de valk die de hoofdpersoon naar Ghalia bint Mansoer brengt heeft tijdens de vlucht stukken vlees nodig; ze worden de valk toegediend alsof het een auto betreft die benzine nodig heeft.
Verhalen of verhaalmotieven zijn niet altijd even logisch of consequent. Aan het begin van verhaal 29 wordt verteld dat er een dief is uit Marrakech en een dief uit Fes, die niettemin even later, in een en dezelfde stad, dezelfde vrouw in hetzelfde huis blijken te hebben.
Soms worden motieven uitgewerkt, soms worden ze zomaar ingevoerd en met hetzelfde gemak weer verlaten. Een verhaallijn kan zonder reden worden afgebroken en nieuwe lijnen kunnen worden ingevoegd. Het einde van een verhaal kan zo plotseling komen, dat het voor het gevoel van de lezer onaf is. Er zijn verhalen die op een zelfde manier beginnen maar heel anders eindigen of verschillend beginnen en met eenzelfde motief eindigen.
Ik heb gestreefd naar een vertaling die zo dicht mogelijk bij de oorspronkelijke Berberse tekst staat, zonder de leesbaarheid van het Nederlands geweld aan te doen.

Enkele verhalen uit de bundel Ikkattinn

Hmad Unamir
Er was eens een jongen die geen familie had, hij had alleen nog maar zijn moeder. Hij was leerling op de koraanschool. Wanneer hij ‘s nachts in zijn bed lag te slapen, kwamen er steeds engelen bij hem op bezoek die hennaversieringen op zijn handen aanbrachten. De volgende morgen stond hij dan op en ging hij naar school. De koraanleraar zag zijn beschilderde handen en gaf zijn leerling daarvoor een flinke straf. Op een dag zei de jongen tegen de koraanleraar: “Meester, U moet me geloven! Ik beschilder mijn handen niet zelf. Als ik ‘s avonds ga slapen, dan blijken mijn handen de volgende morgen beschilderd te zijn! Ik heb geen idee wie dat doet!” “Weet je wat je moet doen?” zei de koraanleraar, “Als je vanavond gaat slapen, neem dan een tadjien mee, zet daar een brandende kaars in en doe het deksel erop, zodat er geen licht uitkomt. Blijf wakker, val niet in slaap, maar doe alsof je slaapt.” “Goed, meester,” antwoordde de jongen. Hij ging weg en deed wat de meester hem gezegd had.

Midden in de nacht kwamen de engelen weer en beschilderden zijn handen met henna. Met een bliksemsnelle beweging pakte hij er een vast. Hij tilde het deksel van de tadjien op en zag in zijn handen een engeltje in de gedaante van een meisje. “Laat me gaan, Hmad,” smeekte het engel-meisje, “je kunt toch niet aan mijn voorwaarden voldoen.” “Ik laat je niet gaan! Door jullie heb ik elke ochtend van de koraanleraar een flinke straf gekregen.” Opnieuw smeekte ze: “Laat me gaan, je kunt toch niet aan mijn voorwaarden voldoen.” “Wat zijn jouw voorwaarden dan?” vroeg hij. Ze antwoordde: “Ik heb zeven kamers nodig, de een gebouwd in de ander en je moet ze allemaal kunnen open maken met één sleutel.” “Dat komt voor elkaar,” zei hij, waarop zij vervolgde: “Maar onthoud goed: niemand mag in die kamers komen behalve jij.” “Afgesproken,” antwoordde hij. Hij liet het engeltje zolang in zijn kamer wonen, totdat hij die zeven kamers had gebouwd. Toen trouwde hij met haar en ging bij haar wonen.
Telkens als hij wegging deed hij de kamers op slot en legde de sleutel onder de mesthoop. Zijn moeder had geen idee wat er in die kamers gaande was. Zij wilde er graag eens een kijkje nemen, maar ze wist niet waar haar zoon de sleutel verstopte.

Op een dag scharrelde er een kip rond in de mesthoop en die woelde de sleutel naar de oppervlakte. Zijn moeder vond de sleutel en begon er onmiddellijk die kamertjes mee open te maken. Toen ze bij de laatste kamer was aangekomen, stond ze oog in oog met het engel-meisje. Ze schrokken allebei zeer. De moeder ging weer snel naar buiten. Haastig deed ze de kamers weer een voor een op slot en verborg de sleutel op dezelfde plek in de mesthoop.

Toen de jongen weer terugkwam, pakte hij de sleutel en opende de eerste deur. Hij zag dat de vloer van de eerste kamer vochtig was. In de tweede kamer kwam het water tot zijn enkels, in de derde kamer kwam het water tot zijn kuiten, in de vierde kamer tot zijn knieën, in de vijfde kamer tot zijn dijen, in de zesde kamer tot zijn middel, in de zevende kamer tot zijn oksels. Daar zag hij in de vensterbank het engel-meisje zitten, ze huilde dikke tranen. “Wat is er met je?” vroeg hij haar. “Met mij is er niets! Alleen, je moeder is hier geweest en dat is tegen onze afspraak! Doe nu even het raam voor me open, zodat ik wat frisse lucht kan krijgen.” De jongen deed het raam open en het engel-meisje vloog weg. Hij strekte zijn hand uit om haar te pakken te krijgen, maar tevergeefs. Zij liet een ring achter in zijn hand, veranderde in een duif en vloog weg. Ze riep nog: “Als je echt van me houdt, kom dan naar me toe in de zevende hemel.” En weg was ze.
De jongen ging naar buiten, kocht een paard en trok de wijde wereld in. Hij reisde drie jaar lang, totdat hij aankwam bij een nest met jongen van een reusachtige valk. Als deze valk vloog, leek het alsof er een huis door de lucht ging. Hij slachtte zijn paard en gaf het vlees aan de jongen in het nest van de valk. Toen de moedervalk weer terugkwam en haar jongen paardevlees zag eten, zei ze: “Laat degene die deze goede daad heeft verricht hier komen. Hij kan van mij krijgen wat hij wil.” De jongeman zei tegen de moedervalk: “Ik heb ze het vlees gegeven.” “Hoe kan ik je belonen?” vroeg de vogel. “Ik wil alleen maar dat je me naar de zevende hemel brengt,” zei hij. “Dat is goed,” zei de valk, “ga maar op mijn rug zitten!” De jongen ging op de rug van de enorme vogel zitten. Met krachtige slagen vloog ze met hem weg.

Toen ze bij de zevende hemel waren aangekomen, zette de moedervalk hem neer en nam afscheid van hem. De jongen liep verder totdat hij bij een bron kwam. Vlak bij de bron stond een boom. Hij besloot erin te klimmen. Na een tijdje kwam er een slavin bij de bron om water te halen. Ze zag het gezicht van de jongen weerspiegeld in het water. Ze zei verongelijkt: “Nu ben ik zó knap! Waarom zou ik water moeten halen voor mijn meesteres?” Boos hief ze de waterkruik omhoog en wilde hem kapot gooien op de grond. Toen riep de jongen naar beneden: “Kalm aan! Kijk eens omhoog, ik ben het die je in het water hebt gezien! Wiens slavin ben je?” “De slavin van mevrouw zus-en-zo,” antwoordde ze. “Kijk,” zei hij, “hier is een ring, breng hem naar je meesteres.” Ze pakte de ring en ging weg. Toen ze thuis kwam, gaf ze de ring aan haar meesteres. Haar meesteres gaf haar het bevel: “Haal een ezel en laad hem vol hooi! Verstop de jongeman onder het hooi en breng hem hierheen.” De slavin ging weg en deed wat haar meesteres haar had bevolen. Ze nam de jongeman mee naar huis. Hij kroop onder het hooi vandaan en zag na lange tijd zijn eigen vrouw weer terug. Hij ging weer bij haar wonen. Zijn vrouw liet hem het hele huis zien. Toen ze bij een bepaalde deur aankwamen die op de aarde uitkeek, zei ze tegen hem: “Je kunt alle kamers van het huis gebruiken, maar doe déze deur alsjeblieft niet open!”

De jongeman woonde lange tijd bij zijn vrouw. Toen de dag van het slachtfeest gekomen was, dacht hij bij zichzelf: “Kom, laat ik eens achter de deur kijken die ik van mijn vrouw niet mocht openmaken.” Hij ging erheen en maakte hem open. Vanuit de zevende hemel zag hij toen de aarde, en heel, heel ver weg, zijn moeder die een schaap voor het slachtfeest in toom probeerde te houden. Ze slaagde er niet in het dier te slachten. Ze riep steeds vertwijfeld: “Waar blijf je nou toch, o Hmad, mijn zoon! Kom toch gauw om voor mij deze ram te slachten.” Ze huilde. De jongeman zag dit. Hij kreeg medelijden met zijn lieve oude moeder en sprong……
Tijdens zijn val naar de aarde sneden de winden hem in stukken. Een druppel bloed kwam terecht op de ram en doodde hem. Zijn vingers vielen op een rots, daar ontstonden vijf bronnen. Hmad Unamir zelf was dood. Vaarwel!

Over de jakhals, de egel en de eigenaar van een tuin
Een jakhals en een egel waren vrienden. Ze hadden samen een tuin en daarin hadden ze uien geplant. Toen de uien groot genoeg waren om geoogst te worden zei de egel tegen de jakhals: “Wat wil je: het bovenste dat voor moslims is toegestaan of het onderste dat voor moslims verboden is?” De egel wilde hem natuurlijk voor de gek houden en hem het uienloof aansmeren, om er dan zelf met de uien aan de onderkant van de plant vandoor te gaan. De jakhals antwoordde: “Ik wil dat wat toegestaan is! Wat zou ik moeten doen met iets dat verboden is?” Waarop de egel zei: “O, maar ik wil me absoluut niet met jouw keuze bemoeien.” “Dat heb ik ook niet gevraagd!” “Welaan,” zei de egel, “oogst je uienloof dan maar!” De jakhals begon het uienloof af te snijden en de egel haalde op zijn beurt de uien uit de grond. Hij legde ze in de zon te drogen. Ook de jakhals legde het uienloof in de zon. De egel liet zijn domme vriend zijn gang maar gaan.
Toen alles mooi droog was zei de egel: “Ik wil die mooie oogst van mij nu wannen.” “Wat bedoel je?” vroeg de jakhals. “Gebruik je ogen maar goed, dan zul je het zien!” zei de egel. De jakhals lette goed op wat zijn vriend deed. De egel wachtte tot er een flinke bries was opgestoken en begon de uien in de wind omhoog te gooien om ze zo te ontdoen van stof en viezigheid. Daarna gooide de jakhals zijn gedroogde uienloof ook maar omhoog in de wind, maar zijn hele “oogst” werd door de wind meegenomen! De egel liet de jakhals achter en lachtte in zijn vuistje. Hij nam de uien mee naar huis en borg ze goed op zodat hij er een tijdlang van kon eten. De jakhals zei tegen hem: “Ik heb best wel in de gaten wat je met me hebt uitgehaald!” Waarop de egel schijnheilig verklaarde: “Ik heb dit alleen maar gedaan om je te laten eten wat voor moslims geoorloofd is!”

Een tijdje later zei de jakhals tegen de egel: “Laten we nog eens samen in de tuin werken!” “Dat is goed,” zei de egel. Ze gingen aan de slag en ze zaaiden deze keer graan. Toen ze klaar waren gingen ze weer uiteen. Toen het graan rijp was geworden zei de egel tegen de jakhals: “Beweer nu niet dat ik je bedrieg en kies gewoon wat je wilt! Wil je het verbodene daar beneden of wil je het toegestane dat daar bovenaan zit?” De egel zei dit natuurlijk omdat hij wel wist dat de jakhals beter zou nadenken dan die keer dat de egel het onderste, de uien, en de jakhals het bovenste, het uienloof, had genomen. De jakhals antwoordde: “Als mij eenmaal iets is overkomen, dan onthoud ik dat goed! Geef mij maar het verbodene daar beneden, en jij, neem jij maar het bovenste!” “Nee,” zei de egel, “jij moet het bovenste pakken, ik neem het onderste.” “Jouw beurt is voorbij,” zei de jakhals, “deze keer zul je me niet meer bij de neus nemen! Ik heb heus wel in de gaten wat je bedoeling is!” De egel deed alsof hij huilde, hij begon luid te jammeren en te weeklagen. “Schiet op,” zei de jakhals bazig, “trek de bovenkant eraf, ik wil nu mijn deel hebben!” Gehoorzaam haalde de egel de korenaren aan de bovenkant van elke plant eraf en liet de korenhalmen voor de jakhals staan. De jakhals kwam eraan om deze halmen te oogsten. De egel liet hem zijn gang maar gaan. Toen de korenaren droog waren, legde de egel ze op de grond en begon te dorsen. De graankorrels sprongen eruit. Ook de jakhals ging dorsen, maar zijn korenhalmen leverden alleen maar stro op. De egel kon weer lekker smullen en de jakhals had weer het nakijken. Hij stond versteld van de slimheid van de egel.

Weer een tijdje later zei de jakhals tegen de egel: “Laten we naar die-en-die tuin gaan, de baas van die tuin is naar huis. Hij staat vol vijgen en druiven.” “Ja!” antwoordde de egel, “laten we daar heen gaan!” Samen gingen ze die tuin in. Telkens als de egel een druif had gegeten, ging hij weg om even te proberen of hij nog door het gat kon waardoor hij de tuin was binnengekomen, want dat gat was nogal nauw. Hij was bang dat hij, eenmaal volgegeten, niet meer door dat gat heen zou kunnen. Dan zou hij niet meer naar buiten kunnen en dan zou de eigenaar van de tuin hem te grazen kunnen nemen. De domme jakhals echter zat zorgeloos vijgen te eten tot hij zijn buik rond had. Daarna ging hij naar de druiven en at verder tot hij een buik had, zo groot als die van een koe. Nauwelijk was de egel de tuin uit of hij zei tegen de jakhals: “Pas op! De eigenaar van de tuin komt eraan!” De jakhals rende naar de plaats waar hij de tuin was binnengekomen, maar hij kon niet meer door het gat naar buiten. Hij schreeuwde tegen de egel: “Als je nog weet wat echte vriendschap is, zeg me dan wat ik moet doen!” De egel zei: “Doe alsof je dood bent, ga languit in een greppel liggen, steek een gebroken abrikoos in je kont, doe je mond open en hou je adem in! Als de eigenaar van de tuin je vindt, dan pakt hij je bij je staart en dan gooit hij je over de omheining. En dan moet je maken dat je wegkomt!” De jakhals deed wat de egel hem gezegd had. Toen de baas van de tuin gekomen was, vond hij de jakhals. Mieren droegen stukjes abrikozenpit weg uit de anus van de jakhals. “Moge God over je rechtspreken, mormel!” zei de baas van de tuin en hij pakte hem bij zijn staart en slingerde hem over de omheining. De jakhals rende weg en riep: “Haha! Ik heb je lekker gefopt!” “O, maar ik herken je toch wel tussen de andere jakhalzen,” riep de baas van de tuin hem achterna, “kijk maar wat er met je staart is gebeurd!” De jakhals bekeek zijn staart en zag dat het vel eraf gestroopt was. Hij schreeuwde naar de egel: “Nu ben ik gelukkig uit de tuin, ik heb gedaan wat je me hebt gezegd! Maar de baas heeft me bij mijn staart gepakt en het vel eraf gestroopt! Ik zei nog: ‘Haha! Ik heb je gefopt!’ Maar hij zei: ‘Ik herken je toch wel! De huid van je staart is eraf gestroopt! Ik ga naar de jakhalzenrechtbank en zal een klacht tegen je indienen. Waar je ook bent, ze zullen je te pakken krijgen en dan zul je alles betalen wat je van me hebt opgegeten.’ ” De egel zei tegen de jakhals: “Hou je mond en zeg niemand er iets over! Roep alle jakhalzen bij elkaar en zeg tegen ze dat ze je moeten komen helpen bij het dorsen.”

Diezelfde dag nog riep de jakhals alle andere jakhalzen bijeen en vroeg of ze mee wilden helpen bij het dorsen. De egel dreef ze bijelkaar en bond al hun staarten aan elkaar vast met een touw. Op deze manier dorste de jakhals met hulp van de andere jakhalzen. Intussen ging de egel naar de windhond en zei tegen hem: “Kom mee, dan kun je lol hebben! De jakhalzen zijn aan het dorsen.” De egel ging weer terug en liep, voor de windhond uit, naar zijn vriend de jakhals en riep tegen hem: “Weg wezen! Snel! De windhonden komen eraan!” Dat zei hij om de jakhalzen bang te maken, zodat ze aan elkaar zouden gaan trekken en elkaar de staart zouden afstropen, zoals dat ook bij zijn vriend was gebeurd. Dan zou de baas van de tuin zijn vriend, de jakhals niet meer herkennen tussen de andere jakhalzen. Ook de jakhals rende naar de andere jakhalzen toe en riep: “Hé jullie daar! Weg wezen! Er komen windhonden op jullie af!” Zodra ze de windhonden hoorden, begon iedere jakhals in paniek in een andere richting te trekken. Zo raakten ook al hún staarten ontveld.

De baas van de tuin ging naar de jakhalzenrechter en diende een aanklacht in tegen de jakhals die uit zijn tuin had gestolen. De jakhalzenrechter vroeg hem: “Denk je dat je de dader kunt herkennen?” “Oh, ja! Ik zal hem zeker herkennen, zijn staart is ontveld. Ik vond hem in de tuin. Die boef deed alsof hij dood was. Er gingen mieren en vliegen bij hem naar binnen. Ik pakte hem bij zijn staart, maar de huid van zijn staart bleef in mijn hand achter.” De rechter van de jakhalzen liet omroepen dat alle jakhalzen moesten komen, alle jakhals-mannetjes en jakhals-vrouwtjes. Toen ze bijelkaar waren gekomen, zag de rechter dat bij tenminste de helft van de jakhalzen de staart ontveld was. De rechter zei tegen de baas van de tuin: “Zit de dader hierbij?” De baas van de tuin kon hem er niet uit halen. De rechter zei op besliste toon: “Dan kan ik ook niemand van hen in staat van beschuldiging stellen.” De baas van de tuin zei op zijn beurt: “Dan wil ik in een hinderlaag gaan liggen en kijken of ik er een te pakken kan krijgen die dan maar alles moet betalen.” De rechter legde dit voorstel aan de dieren voor: “Jakhalzen, als deze man iemand van jullie te pakken krijgt, dan is dat de jakhals die alles moet betalen wat de baas van de tuin kwijt is. Zijn jullie het daarmee eens?” “Afgesproken,” zeiden de jakhalzen, “degene die hij te pakken krijgt zal alles betalen.”

De baas van de tuin verliet de jakhalzenrechtbank. Thuis aangekomen maakte hij een papje van meel en peper en sprenkelde dat op de druiven en op de vijgen zodat degene die ervan at, zou moeten niezen.
Dezelfde jakhals kwam weer naar de tuin en at daar weer totdat hij helemaal vol zat. Toen hij de baas van de tuin hoorde komen, rende hij weg. “Aha! Nu heb ik je te pakken, hoerenzoon!” zei de baas van de tuin. Op zijn beurt schold de jakhals de baas van de tuin uit. En dan schold de baas van de tuin weer terug: “Jij bent een hoerenzoon! Je hebt peper gegeten! Je kunt met die peper in je mond niet voorkómen dat je niest. Reken maar dat ik nu weer naar de rechter ga en die zal alle jakhalzen sommeren te komen. Hij die peper in zijn mond heeft, zal mij een hoge schadevergoeding moeten betalen!”

De jakhals ging naar zijn vriend, de egel, en vroeg hem raad: “Wat denk jij ervan? Ik heb druiven met peper gegeten en nu moet ik de hele tijd niezen. De baas van de tuin heeft nu een klacht tegen me ingediend bij de rechter.” De egel wist raad: “Als je in de rij van verdachten aan de beurt bent om langs de rechter te lopen en als je dan echt moet niezen, dan zeg je gewoon: ‘Edelachtbare, ik heb een heel mooi zusje, haar naam is Ha-ha-hatsjie!’ Zo kun je de rechter en de eigenaar van de tuin bij de neus nemen en kun je langs hen heen lopen zonder dat ze je herkennen.”

De rechter stuurde een bode naar de jakhalzen met het bevel dat ze allemaal bij hem moesten komen. Alle jakhalzen gingen naar de rechter en onderdanig zeiden ze: “Beveel, o heer, en wij zullen U gehoorzamen.” De rechter sprak: “Wie van jullie heeft er nu weer schade berokkend aan deze man en aan zijn tuin?” De jakhalzen antwoordden: “We weten ons geen raad! We hebben geen idee wie deze vervelende jakhals is! Wij willen niet betalen wat hij schuldig is!” De rechter zei boos: “Zeg dat niet, stelletje boeven, tenzij jullie zeker weten dat de schuldige zich niet onder jullie bevindt! Trouwens, degene die peper heeft gegeten zal niet kunnen voorkómen dat hij steeds moet niezen!” De rechter zei toen tegen de jakhalzen: “Loop één voor één langs de baas van de tuin en langs mij!” Gedwee liepen ze één voor één voor hen langs. Toen het de beurt van de brutale druivendief was, nam hij de baas van de tuin en de rechter in de maling: “Edelachtbare, ik heb een heel mooie zuster, ze heet Ha-ha-hatsjie!” Op deze manier kon de jakhals zijn niesaanval verbergen. Hij kon gewoon doorlopen zonder opgepakt te worden. Vaarwel!

De Ayt Smoegen en het zout
Op een mooie dag hielden de leden van de stam Ayt Smoegen een vergadering. Ze zeiden dat ze het beu waren om telkens maar zout te moeten kopen. Ze besloten het zelf maar eens te zaaien zodra het regenseizoen zou aanbreken. Toen het voorjaar was en de aarde vochtig genoeg was om te zaaien, vergaderden ze opnieuw: “Laten we nu de benodigde spullen maar gaan halen om zout te verbouwen.”

Ze gingen naar een bepaalde akker, waar hun stamhoofd, Ali Oe Lmqiys, het zout uitzaaide. Toen ze daarmee klaar waren, gingen ze weer uit elkaar. Na een week riep Ali hen weer bijeen en zei: “Laten we gaan kijken of het zout al een beetje opkomt.” Bij de akker aangekomen bekeek Ali de grond aandachtig. Hij tilde een paar stenen op en tsjak, daar stak een schorpioen hem in zijn hand. Hij zei tegen de mannen om hem heen: “Het zout komt al redelijk op, maar het is bijtend scherp! Laten we terugkomen wanneer het goed is opgekomen.” Ze gingen weer naar huis en wachtten totdat ze er genoeg van hadden. Daarna gingen ze meermalen terug naar die akker om te kijken, maar het zout wilde maar niet opkomen. Uiteindelijk kwamen ze tot een logische conclusie: “Het is vast bedorven zaaigoed geweest!”

Eieren van een ezel
Op een dag had een man op de markt watermeloenen gekocht en daarmee de beide zadeltassen van zijn ezel gevuld. Toen hij, op weg naar huis, op een stil gedeelte van de weg was gekomen, viel een van de watermeloenen uit een van de zadeltassen, rolde van de berghelling naar beneden en botste tegen een boom. De botsing had de haas, die in deze boom woonde, opgeschrikt. Voor de man leek het net alsof de haas zó uit de watermeloen te voorschijn was gesprongen! Hij dacht bij zichzelf: “Wat krijgen we nou! Er zitten jonge ezeltjes in deze eieren!” Hij had niet in de gaten dat het geen ezelsjong was, maar een haas!

De man bracht de watermeloenen naar huis en zei triomfantelijk tegen zijn huisgenoten: “Kijk, ik heb ezelseieren gekocht!” Hij groef een ondiepe kuil bij wijze van nest en legde de watermeloenen erin. Hij haalde de ezel erbij. Het dier weigerde om op het “nest” te gaan zitten en “de eieren” uit te broeden. Hij sneed de koppige ezel de poten af en plaatste hem zo op het “nest” met watermeloenen. Toen hij de volgende dag wakker werd ging hij gauw kijken of de eieren al waren uitgekomen. Hij trof de ezel aan met een verstarde grimas op zijn gezicht en zijn bek wijd open. Vertederd door het tafereel zei de man in zichzelf: “Ach, kijk, ze lacht omdat de kleine ezeltjes elk moment kunnen uitkomen!”

Mohand de grappenmaker
Er was eens een man die Mohand de grappenmaker werd genoemd. Op een keer kwam er een man op hem af die zei: “Beste man, word toch landarbeider (akhmmas) bij mij.” Mohand de grappenmaker antwoordde: “Maar ik ben helemaal geen landarbeider.” “Maar ik heb je nodig,” zei de man, “je moet dit jaar gewoon maar eens landarbeider bij me worden.” “Okee dan!” zei Mohand.
Mohand ging met hem mee om landarbeider te worden. De man gaf hem een hak waarmee dammetjes in irrigatiekanalen kunnen worden gemaakt. Mohand bevloeide het land totdat hij het kon ploegen. Hij haalde ook de trekossen van de man te voorschijn en het zaaigoed. Hij begon te ploegen langs lijnen die hij tevoren had getrokken en hij zaaide het zaaigoed in. Na een dag of twee was hij klaar.

Toen ging Mohand naar de slager en zei tegen hem: “Beste man, ik wil de ossen waarmee ik geploegd heb verkopen.” “Maar wat zal de eigenaar van de ossen daarvan zeggen?” vroeg de slager. Mohand de grappenmaker antwoordde: “Ik regel dat wel met de eigenaar van de ossen, maak je over hem geen zorgen.” De slager betaalde de ossen, nam ze mee en slachtte ze. Mohand, onze landarbeider, sneed de staarten van de dieren af. Hij groef een kuil en stopte de staarten met het dikste uiteinde in de grond. Om te verzwaren legde hij er stenen op en dekte alles af met een laag grond. Hij wachtte tot de middag. Toen rende hij naar de eigenaar van de ossen en riep: “Kom gauw kijken! Kom gauw kijken! De ossen zijn de grond in gelopen!”

De mensen van het dorp en de eigenaar van de ossen snelden achter Mohand aan naar de plaats des onheils. Daar zagen ze twee staarten uit de grond steken. Mohand de grappenmaker zei tegen de eigenaar van de ossen: “Kijk eens, de ossen zijn zo maar de grond in gelopen.” De eigenaar zei tegen de omstanders: “Trek eens aan de staarten zodat de ossen er weer uitkomen!” Maar zodra de mensen aan die staarten begonnen te trekken, schoten ze natuurlijk los uit de grond. De mensen tuimelden achterover. Mohand de grappenmaker schreeuwde toen: “Nu zijn de ossen nog dieper de grond in gelopen! Nu zijn alleen de staarten overgebleven!” De omstanders zeiden tegen de eigenaar: “Je kunt niets tegen je landarbeider inbrengen: je ossen zijn domweg de grond in gelopen!”

—

Uit: Harry Stroomer – Ikkattinn – Berberse volksverhalen uit Zuid-Marokko
“Ikkattinn” is het woord waarmee veel Berberse volksverhalen uit het zuiden van Marokko beginnen. Het betekent “Er was eens” en het is de sleutel tot de magische wereld van het verhaal. Dit boek bevat vertalingen van Berberse verhalen uit Zuid Marokko, het gebied waar Tasjelhiyt Berber wordt gesproken, naar aantal sprekers (8 à 9 miljoen) ‘s werelds grootste Berberse taal.

Rozenberg Publishers 2006 – ISBN 978 90 5170 955 1

Over de auteur:
Harry Stroomer (1946) is hoogleraar Afroaziatisch, in het bijzonder Berberse en Zuidsemitische talen aan de Universiteit van Leiden. In zijn onderzoek is hij gericht op de taalkundige beschrijving van talen en dialecten in het Arabisch-Islamitische cultuurgebied. Hij houdt zich intensief met Berberse talen en culturen bezig, met name die van Marokko.

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Introduction
The crisis of the European Union (EU) is multifaceted and has visibly deepened during the last year. The British referendum on EU membership and the vote in favour of Brexit have only been the most explicit symptom of the disintegrative tendencies. The core-periphery rift in the euro area has continued. The arrival of a large number of refugees from the war-torn areas of the Middle East has resulted in acrimonious conflicts in the EU on the question who should take care of them. The way in which the pro-free trade forces pushed through the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada showed utter disregard for the objections of democratically elected bodies (e.g. the Belgian regions of Wallonia and Brussels).

In face of the multiple crisis of the EU, there is a relatively large consensus ranging from Social Democrats to right-wing nationalist forces to seek a flight forward towards an increasing militarisation of the EU. Otherwise, different strategies to deal with the crises can be discerned. The predominant response is muddling through. It is privileged by the majority of Christian Democrat, Social Democrat and liberal forces. This strategy continues the neoliberal mode of integration and seeks to preserve the present geographic shape of the euro area and the Schengen Zone. It will most probably not prevent the deepening of the disintegration tendencies. There are two sub-varieties of muddling through. One aims to combine it with more fiscal flexibility and more public investment. It is mainly advocated by Social Democrat forces in France and the Mediterranean. The other subvariety abandons the integrity of the Schengen Zone and rather advocates a smaller Schengen Zone with tighter border controls. It is favoured by a relatively broad range of forces particularly in Germany, Austria and Central Eastern Europe. A ‘core Europe’ conception with a smaller and more compact euro area is advocated by right-wing nationalist forces like Lega Nord in Italy, Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) in Austria and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany as well as some Christian Democrat currents. On the right of the political spectrum, there are finally ‘Europe of Nations’ concepts. They tend to advocate focusing European integration on the Single Market and linked economic regulations. The nationalist right-wing demands more spaces of national competitive strategies. Right-wing nationalist parties, like Fidesz in Hungary and Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (PiS) in Poland, regard regional funds as an essential element of integration. Some forces of the nationalist right even tend towards leaving the EU.

On the political left, there are divergent strategies as well. Some forces advocate a form of democratic European federalism. The political presuppositions of such a project are extremely demanding. Other left-wing forces do not regard democratic European federalism as a realist solution and see the EU institutions as being particularly strongly shielded against popular pressures. They propose an explicitly pro-social agenda and defying EU regulations and abandoning the euro area if this is necessary to bring about progressive policy changes.

1. Macroeconomic & development policies to challenge austerity and uneven development
Since late 2014/early 2015 official EU policy has launched two initiatives in order to spark-off a recovery, the ‘Juncker-Plan’ and the clarification of the interpretation of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) with the aim of providing more fiscal leeway for member states. The overall results of these rather timid initiatives for non-monetary demand stimulus are quite discouraging: The euro area is still far from a sustained recovery and with the general weakening of the world economy and the uncertainties caused by the Brexit vote the fragility of the recovery has recently increased considerably.

Macroeconomic policy in the EU needs a different approach that will, in the short-term, deliver a strong and self-sustaining recovery which secures full employment and equitable growth and, in the long run, prevent the obvious macroeconomic imbalances. The present macroeconomic policy approach most unsuccessfully tries to achieve this by a combination of fiscal austerity and a competitive devaluation driven by ‘structural reforms’ on the labour market, i.e. basically by curtailing workers’ rights, weakening trade unions and dismantling the welfare state.

A convincing alternative requires at least six important changes. (1) The balanced budget requirement should be replaced by a balanced economy requirement which includes the objective of high and sustainable levels of employment. (2) In the long-run a substantial EU level budget is required in order to finance EU-wide investment as well as public goods and services and establish a counter-cyclical European level fiscal policy which can support national fiscal policies. (3) Instead of focussing only on overall growth, a successful strategy should also give priority to overcoming disparities between different regions and sectors. (4) A long-run European investment strategy should be developed, addressing European, national and local development. (5) The current deflationary strategy of competitive devaluation should be replaced with a strategy of wage growth which ensures a fair participation of workers in national income growth and stable inflation. (6) Effective measures should be taken against tax competition.

2. EU monetary and financial policies: easy money reaching the limit?
In 2016, the European Central Bank (ECB) continued and even reinforced its policy of very easy credit. However, there are signs that this policy may be reaching its limits. In the course of the crisis, the ECB has acquired vast new powers and responsibilities, which make its independence from all political instances in the EU an even greater violation of democratic principles. Meanwhile the main EU initiative in the sphere of finance, the Capital Markets Union, seems unlikely to yield significant economic benefits and will arguably be seriously disrupted by Britain’s impending departure from the Union.

3. Migration and EU solidarity
Migration within and from outside the EU has severely strained the unity and solidarity of the EU. It was one of the key factors in the Brexit debate and influenced the final result in June 2016. Migration has also become the main rallying point for the right-wing movements and parties across the EU from Poland in the East to France in the West with little attention to the facts of migration. There have been different flows of migration at work with different economic and political dynamics. For some countries like Britain it is the intra-EU migration from Eastern European countries that has been flagged up as a ‘problem’, despite being part of the EU mandated ‘free movement of labour’ whilst for others like Germany it is migration from outside the EU. Some countries like Poland have sent over a million migrants to other EU countries whilst being a strong voice against migrants from outside the EU, especially from Syria and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa region.

What are claimed to be the problems are the pressure on social resources and threat to national and cultural identities. Whilst the former is a result of long standing neglect of public provisioning under various neoliberal economic policies, the latter is more of an excuse to blame the ‘others’ for social and economic problems facing the poor – in part due to the very same neoliberal free trade and globalisation policies. There is also very little evidence for the assertion that migrants have misused welfare support in migration receiving countries.

There are alternatives to the current xenophobic and anti-immigration policies in the EU. In the medium-run there is a need for cultural and political work to change public perceptions on the value of migrants to host countries, whilst in the short-run economic and financial resources do exist and can be mobilised to alleviate the pressure on host regions as well as to support the people who have been forced to seek refuge in the EU.

4. The right-wing and economic nationalism in the EU: origins, programmes and responses
The multiple crisis of the EU has facilitated the rise of right-wing nationalist forces. The nationalist right encompasses a wide range of positions, from nationalist liberal conservative forces to those that are openly fascist. Some of them advocate programmes that are rather neoliberal whereas others combine neoliberal with national-conservative elements, some of which include heterodox elements. Social policies are characterised by a mix of workfare elements and conservative measures. The latter ones aim at restoring ‘traditional’ gender roles. In several West European countries with a significant population of migrant origin, right-wing nationalist parties aggressively advocate an exclusionary ‘national preference’. Counter strategies should not simply oppose ‘European’ to ‘national’ solutions. They should rather propose inclusive and egalitarian policies. Strategies must deal with the decline of peripheral regions and many rural areas. The strategies should be based on territorial levels where the chance of concrete successes seems to be largest. Often, this would be the national rather than the EU level.

5. European external relations
Since the beginning of the temporary suspension of negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the initiation of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) ratification, the latter has stolen the limelight. Strong currents among left-wing parties, trade unions and social movements, however, consider CETA to be as regressive as TTIP in regard to democracy and the state of law. One of the most controversial clauses pertains to the exclusive and unilateral right allowing transnational corporations to sue governments before private arbitration tribunals for losses incurred following a change in legislation. Although CETA declares that ‘the right to regulate within their territories to achieve legitimate policy objectives’ is guaranteed to the states, any possibility of standing in a tribunal with looming colossal indemnities is sufficient to paralyse any action from governments. Moreover, given the imposing presence of US companies in Canada, they could realise, via CETA, a substantial part of TTIP’s objectives. Taking into consideration that the CETA has still to be ratified by national parliaments, the member states’ level will be the key level for opposing CETA.

Nowadays the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is in limbo. The Eastern partnership is failing after the Ukrainian crisis, for which it is partially responsible, while civil wars are raging in the south and – above all – in the south-east of the Mediterranean. The ENP is therefore becoming, on its two fronts, the collateral victim of the US confrontational policy towards Russia. The breach created by the Ukrainian crisis is paving the way for outside interventions, which are reinforcing divisions and fragmentation within the EU. It also lays bare and exacerbates the EU’s inability to act independently. The Ukrainian government, encouraged by the ambiguous attitude of the US and despite the catastrophic situation in the country, is blocking the implementation of the Minsk Agreement drawn up by the EU, whilst the Russians are tending to by-pass Paris and Berlin in order to have direct contact with Washington. The ENP approach has been based on making countries of the EU neighbourhood adopt parts of the EU acquis communautaire. Such integration deepens deindustrialisation tendencies in the periphery. And in a couple of cases, like Ukraine and Moldavia, it has deepened internal geo-political fault lines. Instead of promoting deep free trade and subordinate integration, EU neighbourhood policies should establish forms of mutually beneficial cooperation, for example at sectoral levels.

Read more: (PDF) http://www2.euromemorandum.eu/euromemorandum_2017.pdf